The Magic House
by Flatpickluvr
Summary: A character study exploring why House treats his fellows and fellowship candidates the way he does.  Loosely based on Season 4's "You Don't Want to Know" episode.
1. Chapter 1

The Magic House

**A/N – Not many employees would survive the kind of pressure House puts on his fellows, and I thought it would be interesting to explore why he pushes their buttons so much. After re-watching "You Don't Want to Know" from season 4, I decided to write a fic based on that episode and explore his relationship with his fellows more. There probably won't be any OCs in this fic. The standard disclaimer applies that I don't own House or any of the characters from the show. Since this is purely a character study, it's entirely safe for kids. There will be angst down the road as I delve into House's obsession with games. Enjoy, and please review! Your reviews make my day!**

Chapter 1

"Magic" – _the claimed art of altering things either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science…"_. In a purely logical world, cause always precedes effect, but if one believes in magic, then the effect _appears_ to have no cause. That's the wonder of magic. A successfully performed magic trick produces a visual effect for which there is no _apparent_ cause. There IS always a cause. There is always an explanation. But it's the magician's job, it's the magician's art, to dissociate cause from effect; to make it appear that the visual effect his or her audience sees has no apparent cause. The big problem with being a magician, though, is that there is always someone in the audience hell-bent on finding the cause and proving you're a fraud.

Kutner and Big Love (Cole) went out one night on what House called a "Man Date". They wound up witnessing the near-death of the magician who had been attempting one of Houdini's old escape tricks – escaping from a tank of water after being lowered into the tank head first, bound and shackled. The magician suffered a cardiac arrest as soon as his head hit the water, without any evidence of drowning.

Next morning, with the magician still in Princeton-Plainsboro's emergency room, Kutner had a dilemma. A bad magician who screwed up that trick would suffer from a condition called a vaso-vagal response. This is what happens during drowning. Acute pressure changes in the chest cause the vagus nerve to make the heart slow down too much or even stop. This is why, if your heart is beating too fast, taking deep breaths will slow your heart rate down. The same thing happens as part of drowning.

Kutner's dilemma was that he was sure something else was wrong with the magician besides a simple case of vaso-vagal response, but he was equally sure that House would shoot him down. "Vaso-vagal response – BORING – discharge him and send him home with a copy of The Dummy's Guide to Magic Tricks. He goofed up the trick." Kutner was SURE House would say something like that; probably just before firing Kutner for tying up the diagnostics department's time with such a simple case. But Kutner was just as convinced that there was really something wrong with the magician. The trick was going to be getting House to take the case.

When House came cruising in to the lecture hall riding his scooter, it only reinforced Kutner's dilemma. "Aww – five eager doctors and no sick people…" House said. Clearly House was in the mood for games, and no matter who their next patient would be, it was also clear to everyone in the room that House was going to make a game out of the case. This did not bode well for Kutner, but Kutner dug in, stood his ground and told House about Mr. Finn the Magician. The expression on House's face was priceless. _Dammit if he isn't persistent,_ thought House. _I can't let Kutner see that I agree with him. _Ever the Devil's advocate, House interrupted Kutner over and over again. House had pretty much already figured out there was something else wrong with the patient too, but he wanted to see how sure Kutner was of himself. How far would he need to push Kutner before he started to doubt himself? Either Kutner trusted his intuition or he didn't. House needed to know how confident his fellowship candidates were in their own intuition. There may be other ways of assessing their self-confidence, but House had always found the "button-pushing" technique to be a tried and true assessment tool.

House's goal for his diagnostics fellows was to help strengthen their own self confidence during their fellowship. To outsiders, House's treatment of his fellows and fellowship candidates appeared to border on being illegal, immoral, and possibly even insane. To those in the know, however, House's mission was pretty clear.

_They might not know what is wrong with the patients I accept, but I need them to trust their own intuition even when the circumstances make them doubt their instincts. If they go on to become diagnosticians themselves, they will get plenty of cases where the effect has no apparent cause and the patient's circumstances may make them doubt their own abilities as doctors to FIND the cause. I need them to trust their own intuition._

For Kutner to pass the test, House could not let on that he believed Kutner's assertion that there was really something wrong with the patient. House pushed and pushed Kutner, but the more he pushed Kutner, the more Kutner stood his ground.

"Fine. Go run your tests. If you're wrong, you're fired," was House's challenge to Kutner. Kutner, rising to the challenge, replied "If I'm right, do I stay?"

House issued one more challenge: "If I say no, are you going to let your patient die?" Kutner responded by leaving the room to start the tests and House knew right then and there that Kutner had what it took to make a first-rate diagnostics specialist. Anyone with the balls to stand up for himself in response to this kind of pressure was aces in House's mind.

House's fellowship candidates ran the gamut from meek pushovers to insane, crazy jerks. The pushovers either didn't have the requisite medical knowledge to survive House's diagnostics fellowship program or else they didn't have enough confidence in their own abilities as doctors. Either way, House needed them gone quickly. The crazy jerks had too much self-confidence and would never be willing to admit that they might be wrong, to accept alternate theories. They had to go quickly, too. House wanted the ones in the middle, the ones like Kutner who knew that they might possibly be wrong, weren't afraid to admit they might be wrong, but also weren't afraid to stand up for themselves when they knew they were right. These were the fellows who knew they had a lot to learn but also could trust their own instincts. These were the prize candidates House was after.


	2. Christopher Taub

The Magic House chapter 2

**A/N – Sorry you had to wait so long for an update. I really had trouble with this chapter because I think Taub is so boring. I find it difficult to write anything imaginative about this character. Thanks to pgrabia for helping me find some kind of direction for this chapter! Although the story was inspired by "You don't want to know", in Season 4, the events in this story and from here on out may or may not have occurred in that episode. It will still be centered around Season 4 though. As usual, I don't own House MD or any of the characters from the show. This is just for fun, not profit!**

Christopher Taub, MD was a plastic surgeon who had a reputation for cheating on his wife. One of his affairs involved an employee in the plastic surgery practice in which he was a partner. In exchange for an agreement from his former partner not to divulge information about the affair, Dr. Taub signed a non-compete agreement which meant he signed over his half of the partnership to the other partner and he agreed not to practice plastic surgery in the same market. Dr. Taub's unfaithfulness to his wife ruined his career. Having no viable job opportunities in the Princeton area, Dr. Taub had two choices – move to another market and try to resurrect his plastic surgery career, or stay where they were and start all over again in a different specialty. Moving to another market to set up or join another plastic surgery practice would stir up suspicions with his wife, so he chose option B and applied for the diagnostics fellowship program at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Why an experienced, otherwise successful plastic surgeon would even think about applying for a grunt job in a fellowship program just boggled the mind. His wife Rachel couldn't figure it out. Fellowship programs are generally for young physicians who are still climbing the career ladder. The hard work and long hours in exchange for very little pay is a trade-off that these younger physicians are usually better able and more willing to handle. It's a difficult trade-off for older physicians to handle. House brought Taub in with the other 39 fellowship candidates because he never went through their files first. When the three fellowship positions were announced, House just called the first 40 candidates whose files appeared on his desk. He figured as time went by, the cream would separate by itself from the rest of the crop and he'd keep the three who rose to the top.

Chris Taub was an oddball in the group of 40 candidates. He was the second oldest in the group. The oldest wasn't even a doctor but he had more medical experience than anyone in the room, because of his years working at the medical school. This left Chris Taub as the oldest physician in the group of mostly very young, inexperienced physicians. Chris had no experience in diagnostics since all of his experience was in plastic surgery. He wasn't there because he wanted to be. He was there because he thought that he had no choice. Not exactly the kind of candidate one would want in a prestigious fellowship program, but then again, House had said many times he wasn't interested in reading the applicants' files. Applicants could lie on and pad their applications all they wanted to. House wasn't interested in what they looked like on paper, just like he wasn't interested in what Cuddy's sperm donor applicants put in their files.

So Christopher Taub wound up sitting in Row D in the lecture hall at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital one day, staring at a picture of Buddy Ebsen, while the weird director of the department of diagnostics skated around the room on a scooter and asked them questions about an actor who died years ago. Chris figured he must be one of only two or three in the room who was old enough even to have heard of the actor. He also wondered if keeping Rachel in the dark about his infidelity was worth all of this lunacy.

Day One with the new candidates. Forty of them. _This is ridiculous. I don't even want three of them, much less a whole room full. I can do this job by myself, _House thought as he scanned the room. _I'm just going through this formality because Cuddy's making me. _Names weren't important. Thirty seven of them would be gone before House could remember their names, anyway.

A few people stood out as he briefly scanned the room.

A really old bald guy; obviously not a fellowship candidate; _what the hell's he doing here? Is my department under some kind of inspection, maybe by the AARP? _House chuckled to himself.

A middle-aged short guy with thinning hair slouching in his chair, staring at his hands and looking immensely bored. He was not as old as the really old guy, but still, older than the average fellowship applicant. Taub's age wasn't the only thing that made him stand out though. What really made him stand out was the apparent lack of enthusiasm for the job. The first thought that ran through House's quick mind as he spotted Taub was _Why would a guy who's probably too old to start over again in this fellowship apply for a spot on my team, and then show up on his first day looking interminably bored? Does he think this job is below his skills? _House smiled to himself. _If he doesn't think he's got a lot to learn, he'll be the first one on the train out of here. Good one to mess with._

A black guy. The only black guy in the room.

A pretty blonde girl with shoulder length hair and an attitude, who can't stay out of everyone else's business and can't stop texting people. _Wonder what she's trying to prove, _House thought immediately.

A pretty girl in the back with long brown hair who won't unclench her arms, who seems to wear a permanent glare and looks like she either hates everyone here or just wants to be left alone. House wondered what was wrong with her.

A tall, thick, brown-skinned guy slouching in his chair with a perennially goofy grin on his face who is wearing tennis shoes, yet also looks like he's really interested and wants to be here. _He looks like a big overgrown eighteen year old who just got a new Nintendo._

Pretty much everyone else in the room bored House to death. Nobody else stood out, so there was nobody else House felt like he really needed to figure out. He sent them all out of the room to do different tasks and wasn't surprised when about nine of them never came back. He also wasn't the least bit surprised to find out that the pretty blonde girl with the attitude had something to do with why these nine didn't come back.

Ridiculously Old Guy was most likely too old to do well in this fellowship, but House wasn't ready to count him out right away. Ridiculously Old Guy was fun. He had a bit of a smart aleck attitude and pretty nearly always had the right answers to questions. He was one of the few who even knew who Buddy Ebsen was, let alone that Buddy nearly died from an allergic reaction to aluminum dust. He could try to figure the really old guy out later. Taub was next on House's list of puzzles to figure out.

"Taub, up here." House said curtly when the other fellowship candidates had been dismissed from the lecture hall, and went about their assigned duties for the day.

"Theory. Tell me where I'm wrong. Middle aged plastic surgeon leaves what's probably a very lucrative practice to come and do grunt work for me for next to no pay. I'm guessing there's a skeleton in the closet, right?" House asked, staring intently at Taub.

Taub squirmed under the pressure and avoided looking at House. "I assume you looked at my file," he said, gradually meeting House's intent gaze. "I never said I was talking about you. Whether or not I've looked at your file isn't the question. It's a deflection; something with which you will become very familiar if you survive this application process. I asked if there was a skeleton in the guy's closet. I never said I was talking about you, and you haven't answered the question."

"I applied for this fellowship. My educational experience, published articles, research projects, awards, prior employers and dates of my prior employment on the application are correct. All answers on my application are honest and correct. Any information beyond that is not relevant which is why there are no more questions on the application. My answer to your question is, 'Everyone has skeletons in their closet. I have found that it's best to leave them there.'" With that, Taub smirked, turned on his heels and strode confidently out of the lecture hall. House smiled and went back to his office. The next few weeks were definitely going to be interesting.


	3. Jeffrey Cole

The Magic House Chapter 3

**A/N – I am not Mormon and I probably have not done enough research on the Mormon faith for this chapter. Forgive me if there are any inaccuracies about the Mormon faith. This chapter is an attempt to delve into why House is so fascinated with ANY religious characters; Mormon or otherwise. As usual, House, Cole, and all of the other characters in this story are the property of Fox or NBC/Universal and David Shore and those other powers that be. I'm just writing this for fun, not profit.**

"I have a gift for observation; for reading people and situations. But sometimes, I am wrong. This will be the longest job interview of your life. I will test you in ways that you will often consider unfair, demeaning, and illegal. You will often be right. Look to your left. Now look to your right. By the end of six weeks, one of you will be gone; as will twenty eight more of you. Wear a cup," House pronounced at the front of the lecture hall.

Dr. Jeffrey Cole was the sole African American in a room full of about 40 candidates for the diagnostics fellowship program at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. He arrived for his first day as a fellowship candidate dressed to the nines, not sure what to expect but ready to impress this odd Dr. House. He was even more unsure of what to expect when Dr. House handed out numbers for all of them to wear around their necks. Cole was number 18. As he looked around the room surveying the other candidates, scoping out his enemies, the first thing he noticed was that he was the only African American candidate, and he also noticed that he seemed to be the most confident candidate there other than an old man in the back row. Many of the other candidates were slouching in their chairs, nervously fiddling with things, looking bored or looking like this fellowship wasn't really the first thing they wanted. Cole sat straight up in his chair, with his hands folded neatly in front of him, looking straight out at people he did not know, and also scanning the room looking for any signs of Dr. House.

House came into the room and most of the nervous fidgeting stopped. Most of the candidates who had been slouching in their chairs or talking amongst themselves stopped what they were doing and sat up at attention. House immediately saw the only black man in the room. He locked eyes briefly with Dr. Cole and Cole thought "Yeah, right, geez, I'm the only black guy here. Of course he noticed me right off the bat."

As the picture of Buddy Ebsen appeared on the overhead projector, Cole began to wonder if everything he had heard about House was true. Unlike many of the other candidates, Cole was here because he wanted to be here. He had heard this was the best diagnostics department in the country, one of only a few hospitals who had such a specialty. Cole was either at or near the top of his class consistently at Brigham Young University. He became aware, however, during this first meeting with Dr. House and the other candidates, that grades were probably not the highest thing on the list of qualifying criteria for this fellowship. Cole observed Dr. House scanning over every candidate in the room. He wondered what House saw in several of the candidates. Cole thought he must be observing and studying House even more intently than House was studying him. Cole wondered why he had not been called in for a one on one interview with Dr. House, as was the custom when applying for a fellowship position. _Why in the world would 40 people be in this room? _Cole wondered. In his residency program, he was already pre-selected based on his application, grades, licensing exam scores, published articles, and so forth. He just had to interview with the program director to finalize acceptance into the residency program. This diagnostics fellowship application process was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Cole thought that House must not have looked at the applications very thoroughly. It was also obvious to Cole that House intended on making this process a competition, and had no intention of interviewing him one on one. Being top of the class might matter to some extent, and probably had a great deal to do with why he was even considered for the position, but obviously House was looking for other characteristics as well. Cole just had to figure out exactly what House WAS looking for.

"Dark Religious Nut". _What the hell did he just call me?_ "What did you just call me?" Cole said to the phone. Several weeks later, on one particular day, House chose not to appear in the lecture hall. About half of the forty candidates were gone. The remaining candidates were seated in the lecture hall and a telephone sat prominently on the desk. House's voice emanated loudly from the phone. "Dark Religious Nut. I'm sorry, what do you people want to be called this week?" House replied. _Cole, you asinine lazy idiot, _Cole thought to himself. "Cole!" he replied instead. House asked Cole to take the ridiculously old guy and "the other visible minorities" to the funeral home where their current patient worked.

_Why is House hiding?_ Cole wondered.

From the moment, early on, that House figured out Cole was a practicing Mormon, Cole became the primary target for House's rapier sarcasm. Cole realized this was why House was so fascinated with him. Cole represented an interesting dilemma. Since there was no scientific evidence of a God in House's view, he was endlessly fascinated by well-educated, scientifically inclined, intelligent people who professed devout belief in a non-existent, omniscient, supreme being. In House's mind, if one believed in God, then one also believed that God created the world and everything in it. One could not believe wholeheartedly that there was a God and also believe wholeheartedly in the scientific proof that life evolved through natural selection in response to environmental forces. In House's mind, anyone who professed belief in God and also in the evidence provided by the study of biology was a hypocrite.

After all, in House's mind, neither God nor Jesus wrote the Scripture or the Book of Mormon. These texts were written by mortal humans, and consisted solely of some human's interpretation of what they thought this supreme being was trying to teach. House was convinced that human error was inherent in Holy texts like the Bible and the Book of Mormon. How people could profess belief in Scripture (or the Torah, or the Koran, or the Book of Mormon for that matter) was a puzzle House could not put down. How martyrs could be willing to die for these beliefs was the supreme conundrum. How any faith could condemn someone for not believing in text that had human error inherently _built into it_ was unfathomable to House. House had read all of these texts cover to cover in order to find and point out all of the instances of human error that these texts contained.

So here was Cole; a practicing Mormon who had no idea where the mother of his child was. Even more interesting was that House thought Mormons believed in non-violence, yet here was a professed Mormon who had just decked his boss when his boss challenged his beliefs.

Of all the candidates, Cole was the most interesting one and the one House most wanted to keep around. Unfortunately, in the process of doing what he was challenged to do (get Cuddy's panties), Cole unwittingly broke one of House's cardinal rules – which was that if you're gonna play the game, you have to know your opponent and don't give power to your opponent. Cole ultimately failed the test, and was the only candidate that House was truly sorry to have to let go.


End file.
